Stifling again: EHS girls romp past Highland Park, 84-25
By Michael Ashford
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Right now, the Emporia High girls basketball team’s best offense is its defense.
For the second straight game, the No. 1-ranked Lady Spartans knocked around a Topeka school — the latest victim being Highland Park — behind a stifling defense that set up their transition offense, giving the Lady Spartans easy look after easy look in an 84-25 victory over the Lady Scots on Tuesday night.
“The better defense you play, the better offense you have,” senior guard Nichole Naab said. “There’s always room to improve and get better on defense, but our defense is getting better, and right now it’s creating a lot of offense.”
After forcing 43 turnovers last Friday against Topeka West, the Lady Spartans (7-0, 4-0 Centennial League) forced Highland Park into 32 turnovers. The Lady Spartans have been so good on defense out of the winter break that they have barely needed to run their half-court offense, not that it matters much to EHS coach Bill Nienstedt.
“We spend the bulk of our time everyday working on defense,” Nienstedt said. “I’ve always believed if you defend really, really well, you’re going to get some easy shots because of it. We’ve talked a little the last couple of games about trying to push the ball a little bit better, and I thought we did a good job of that.”
Emporia High was decidedly sluggish in the first half against the Lady Scots (4-3, 1-2), who got a nice boost of energy when Kanesha Mock banked in a half-court shot at the buzzer at the end of the first quarter to close Emporia’s lead to 13-6. But turnovers killed what little momentum Highland Park had — the Lady Scots committed 17 first-half turnovers — and EHS ground its way to a 33-18 halftime lead.
“Highland Park’s got some nice players,” Nienstedt said, “and they had a good game plan early.”
But in the second half, Emporia High got downright nasty defensively.
Not only did EHS take the ball away from Highland Park another 15 times in the second half, but the Lady Spartans held the Lady Scots to just 2-of-23 shooting — a dismal 9-percent performance from the field. Highland Park’s only two makes of the second half came at the 5:07 mark of the third quarter and with 1:46 left in the fourth.
“At halftime, coach told us that we needed to pick it up on defense,” Sadie Webb said. “We just took the pressure up even more, and it worked.”
Emporia got the margin above 20 points just 1 1/2 minutes into the third period when Lexi Hileman made a layup and a free throw to put EHS ahead 40-18. Mock made the score 40-20 with a layup on Highland Park’s next possession, and then EHS closed out the period on a 20-3 run.
“We just defended so well in the third quarter,” Nienstedt said, “and before you know it, the game had gotten away from Highland Park.”
If it was possible, Emporia was even better in the fourth, outscoring the Lady Scots, 24-2, in the period.
Nienstedt said a lot of the credit for Emporia’s recent play defensively had to go to Naab and Lindy Arndt, as both players, he said, had become shut-down defenders on the ball.
“Lindy Arndt and Nichole Naab have become very, very good at guarding the ball, and all good defense starts on the ball,” he said. “It starts with those two.”
In the second half, Emporia’s defense set up its offense, as EHS went 17-of-27 (63 percent) from the field, with a majority of those baskets coming on fast-break or transition opportunities.
“If you get turnovers, you can quicken the pace of the game, and that’s how we want to play,” said Webb, who led all scorers with 22 points. “Our team wants to play fast.”
Emporia next will venture out on the road for the first time this season, as the Lady Spartans will travel to take on Junction City on Friday. Junction City is ranked ninth in Class 6A.
Emporia girls 84, Highland Park 25
Tuesday at EHS
Highland Park 6 12 5 2 — 25
Emporia 13 20 27 24 — 84
Highland Park (4-3, 1-2 Centennial League) — Kingcannon 0-5 1-2 1, Rhoiney 0-1 0-0 0, Russell 1-6 0-2 2, Mock 2-12 0-0 5, McClelland 3-7 3-6 9, Williams 2-6 0-0 6, White 0-0 0-0 0, Carr 0-0 0-0, Wade 0-0 0-0 0, Wakefield 1-1 0-0 2, Roberts 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 9-39 4-10 25.
Emporia (7-0, 4-0) — Armitage 2-4 0-0 5, Webb 7-10 8-10 22, Arndt 3-7 4-4 10, Naab 4-6 5-8 13, Hileman 3-5 1-1 7, Meza 2-3 2-2 6, VanGundy 1-3 4-4 6, Heinrichs 2-4 1-3 5, Leihsing 1-2 0-0 2, Scheve 0-0 0-1 0, Waldner 4-5 0-2 8, Nuessen 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 29-49 25-36 84.
3-point goals — HP 3-13 (Russell 0-1, Mock 1-7, Williams 2-5), Emporia 1-4 (Armitage 1-2, VanGundy 0-2). Rebounds — HP 25 (McClelland 9), Emporia 33 (Hileman 8). Assists — HP 4 (Kingcannon 2), Emporia 15 (Meza 4). Turnovers — HP 32, Emporia 12. Total fouls — HP 21, Emporia 11. Fouled out — HP: Rhoiney, Russell, McClelland.